A LATEX macro package for Message Sequence Charts
Contents
1. msc label distance distance no default initially 1ex Specifies the distance between the instance head symbol and the part of the instance name drawn above the head symbol msc draw head colour no default initially Sets the colour of the instance head If you do not want to draw an instance head set colour to none When colour is empty then the last colour is used usually black The following MSC shows the declaration of an MSC with three instances The first and the last are normal instances one line axis whereas the second is a fat instance double line axis The optional parameter values small indicates that the small drawing style should be used see Section 7 begin msc small values instances declinst i above within above declinst j j within j declinst k k k end msc ED n msc instances 6 5 Messages A message is denoted by an arrow from the sending instance to the receiving instance The instances are referred to by their nicknames A message is defined with the following command mess options name sender receiver T leveloffset The name of the message may be any string The MSC macro package processes the name argument in LR mode see 3 page 36 This means that the string will consist of one line To generate multi line message names use the standard parbox command see the Tricks section in the reference manual 12. A BIFX macro package for Message Sequence Charts User Manual Victor Bos Ton van Deursen Piotr Kordy Sjouke Mauw Universit du Luxembourg Universit du Luxembourg Universit du Luxembourg victor bos ssf fi ton vandeursen uni 1lu piotr kordy uni lu sjouke mauw uni 1lu Version A2 0 last update June 3 2014 Describing MSC macro package version 2 0 Abstract The MSC macro package facilitates the TFX user to easily include Message Sequence Charts in his texts This document describes the design and use of the MSC macro package Contents 1 New 2 2 Introduction 3 3 Background and motivation 3 4 Installation copyright and system requirements 4 5 Quick start 5 6 Use of the MSC macro package 6 Oe RS oe ee ee EG ee Ge ea ee 6 6 2 The MSC fame ee ee eR CE Ewe ee ee eR we ee eS 6 Ga Levels oe gi ok we ee ee ee OE ee Eee ES e a T Oe 1 eK TTT T BS re A RER ERER ETRE ka a oe BR T TR T ER E E 9 Oo Sens nce ara ee eee Eee ee ee Ee PE oe 10 Or SR aie oe ee we ks se eh Stee os 12 ie OR og ck ee we Oe ww OR Ew oe OR Ewe ee E OHS 13 BS Time measuremenla so santaa ian p RR a e a dea EB 14 6 10 L st and found messages s co so resso rtk far od Kaom eee OES 15 7 CBC lt cor e anr Se he ew eRe Oe ee Oe Re OK SOS 15 6 12 Generalized ordering lt s ci cs sires nibeti ddi RE aiudat 16 Gle Instance Pes oe a o e ae ea E eee 6 e bd EDs a 17 6 14 Instance creation and instance stop ooo a a a 18 Glo MSC Peren 2 cae So ee he a A O
3. This bugfix fails if the background is not white The xdvi program shows the white fbox in black with the result that diagrams have two visible frames This seems to be a bug of xdvi The lines around comments msccomment Section 6 6 are changed from gray into black The reason for this is that the gray lines became invisible after converting the document to HTML 2 Introduction The MSC language is a visual language for the description of the interaction between different components of a system This language is standardized by the ITU International Telecommunication Union in Recommendation Z 120 2 An introductory text on MSC can be found in 5 MSCs have a wide application domain ranging from requirements specification to testing and documentation An example of a Message Sequence Chart is in Figure 1 In order to support easy drawing of MSCs in BTEX documents we have developed the MSC macro package The current version of the MSC macro package supports the following MSC constructs MSC frame instances both single line width and double line width messages including self messages and messages to the environment actions singular and combined timer events set timeout reset set timeout set stop lost and found messages generalized order conditions coregions activation regions suspension regions gates instance creation instance stop time measurements references and inline expressions In addition there is support
4. declinst il i declinst j j declinst k k regionstart activation i regionend i ness m it j regionstart coregion j regionstart suspension k ness p j k regionstart activation i ness q j i regionend j regionend i mess r i j ness s j k regionend k end msc 6 14 Instance creation and instance stop nextlevel 3 nextlevel nextlevel nextlevel nextlevel nextlevel 3 nextlevel nextlevel The MSC language offers constructs for dynamic instance creation and instance destruction An instance can dynamically create another instance by issuing a create command An instance creation is drawn as a dashed message arrow At the side of the arrow head the instance head symbol for the created instance is drawn An instance end symbol does not denote the end of the specified process but merely the end of its current description Therefore a different symbol is needed which denotes that an instance stops before the end of the MSC in which it is contained The instance stop symbol is a cross The following commands are used for instance creation and instance stop dummyinst options created instance T This command reserve space for on instance which will be created dynamically dummyinst command is mixed with the declarations of normal instances see the declinst com mand Section 6 4 The argument created instance is the nickname of the instance that will be cre
5. Influences all arrows drawn in msc environment In Figure 2 we see MSC that shows an example of the use of messages In this sample MSC and the following MSCs in this section we will not list the complete textual representations of the MSCs For brevity we omit the environment call and the declarations of the instances Note the final nextlevel command which is needed to make the instance axis long enough to receive message a Figure 3 shows different options that can be used to position label We use the keys pos label position and side to place the labels Additionally we use tikz anchor key which is an alternative way to specify the placement of the label see PGF Manual 1011 msc messages begin msc small values head top distance 0 8cm messages declinst i i declinst j j declinst k k mess a j i 3 mess self i i 1 nextlevel mess b j k mess b c k envright nextlevel mess d k 6 i end msc Figure 2 Example showing msc messages 6 6 Comments Comments are additional texts to clarify events on an instance The following command can be used to add comments to an MSC diagram msccomment options tert instance The instance parameter defines the instance to which the comment is attached The text of the comment is specified by the text parameter and is processed in LR mode The key side affect the horizontal position relative to its instance The fo
6. options nickname text z y Draws a text inside a rectangular frame with diamond shaped sides The nickname can be used later to connect it to other hmsc elements msc hmsc condition height height no default initially 0 7cm Sets the minimal height of the condition to height msc hmsc condition width width no default initially 1 4cm Sets the minimal width of the condition to width hmscconnection options nickname x y Draws a small circle symbolizing connection at coordinates z y Later we can refer to the connection using nickname msc hmsc connection radius distance no default initially 0 05cm Sets the radius of the connection symbol to the distance 23 The HMSC grid is not drawn but used to control the positioning of the HMSC symbols startsymbol endsymbol reference condition and connection The center of each symbol is drawn on the grid point with coordinates z y Each symbol also has a nickname for later reference hmscreference nickname text x y hmsccondition nickname text x y hmscconnection nickname x y arrow from nickname coord list to nickname HMSC symbols can be connected by means of the arrow command This draws an arrow from the symbol with nickname from nickname to the symbol with nickname to nickname The optional argument coord list can be used if the line connecting the source and the destination should not be straight The coord
7. by the generalized ordering symbol At the receiver instance the generalized ordering symbol ends at the current level plus the level offset The level offset is an optional integer value with default 0 In case sender and receiver denote the same instance the order is a self order The placement of the order arrow of a self order is controlled by the key side It can have values left meaning that the ordering symbol is drawn left of the instance axis and right meaning that the ordering symbol is drawn right of the instance axis By default it is drawn at the left side of the instance The position of the arrow is controlled with the pos key The key selfmessage width specify the width of the polyline used for drawing orderings on a single instance axis The key arrow scale controls the size of the arrow Orderings to or from the environment i e the left or the right side of the MSC frame can be specified by setting the sender or the receiver argument to the value envleft or envright 16 An example of a generalized order is given in the following diagram begin msc head top distance 0 8cm generalized order declinst i i declinst j j ness m envleft i order i j 1 nextlevel ness k j envright nextlevel end msc msc generalized order 6 13 Instance regions A part of the instance axis can be drawn in a different style Such a part is called an instance region The following r
8. list has the following syntax x1 y1 x2 y2 xk yk This means that the connecting line goes through the points with coordinates xl y1 x2 y2 xk yk Arrows always leave the start symbol at the bottom They enter the end symbol at the top Arrows start and end either at the middle of the top or at the middle of the bottom of a reference and condition symbol The incoming outgoing direction of the arrow determines whether it will start end at the top or at the bottom There are several parameters to control the size and shape of the symbols see Section 7 These are hmscconditionheight the height of the condition symbol hmscconditionwidth the width of the condition symbol excluding the left and right angular parts hmscreferenceheight the height of the reference symbol hmscreference width the width of the reference symbol messarrowscale size a command to set the size of the arrow head of a connection line setconnectiontype type set the shape of the polyline connection the symbols type can be straight rounded and curved startsymbolwidth the width of the start and end symbol topnamedist sets the distance between the top of the HMSC frame and the HMSC header An example of an HMSC is in the following diagram Notice that the width and height of reference symbols are changed locally i e between and braces just before the big reference b is defined 24 hmsc High level begin hmsc High le
9. setting of a timer and stopping a timer msc offset offset no default initially 2 The key holds the value of offset It denotes the number of levels between the two events msc timer width width no default initially 0 3cm The key determines the width of the hour glass and the time out symbols The various timer symbols are shown in the following example begin msc small values timers declinst i i declinst j j i j k declinst k k settimer T 50 j T 50 X V setstoptimer r V k 6 nextlevel 2 U TX timeout T j settimeout U i mX 7 20 nextlevel 2 settimer r T 20 j ae nextlevel 2 stoptimer LY T j end msc msc timers 13 6 9 Time measurements There are several commands to add time measurements to an MSC mscmark options name instance This command attach an absolute time stamp to an event on an instance The name is the text attached to the mark symbol which is a dashed polyline The position of the mark is determined by the keys position above below and side left right msc position position no default initially above The key determines the position of the mark symbol relative to the marked event The allowed values for position are above mid and below measure options name instancel instance2 offset This command connects two events from instance1 and instance2 The f
10. which has not yet been created or which has already been stopped However it is possible to create an instance after it has stopped as showed in the next example begin msc small values dynamic instances declinst i i dummyinst j declinst k k msc dynamic instances mess p i k nextlevel 3 create label position below kick k j H j nextlevel 2 stop k nextlevel mess ok j i nextlevel stop jt nextlevel 2 startinst k again nextlevel 2 end msc 6 15 MSC references Within an MSC a reference to other MSCs can be included Such a reference is drawn as a rectangle with rounded corners covering part of the MSC The following commands are used to draw MSC references referencestart options nickname text left instance right instance The reference symbol starts at the level where the referencestart command is used and ends at the level where the corresponding referenceend command occurs These commands correspond if they have the same nickname The text is placed in the center of the reference symbol The reference covers all instances from leftinstance to rightinstance The left and right edge of the reference symbol are nickname left and nickname right where nickname is the nickname of the MSC reference as defined in the referencestart command These names can be used at every place where the nickname of an in
11. By default the name of a message label is drawn above the center of the arrow but the optional keys label position side and pos influence the actual location as described below The arrow starts at the current level at the sending instance The arrow ends at the current level plus the level leveloffset at the receiving instance leveloffset can be also modified by specifying keys level shift and offset The sender and receiver should be the nicknames of declared instances Messages to or from the environment i e the left or the right side of the MSC frame can be specified by setting the sender or the receiver argument to one of the values envleft or envright Note Since instances and environments are treated equally in the implementation at every position where the nickname of an instance is required also envleft and envright are allowed In case the sending and the receiving instance are the same the message is a self message A self message is drawn as a polyline connecting the instance axis to itself The starred version of the command mess produces the same result as mess except that the arrow is drawn with a dashed line This can be used to draw a method reply see 2 The following keys influence the messages msc level shift integer no default initially 0 For non self message integer determines at which level message should arrive relative to the starting level of the message msc offset integer no d
12. RES ALES ERR e G ed 19 O 16 Inline xpresi ns oc co a e eR EERE Ree ES See BSE EE 20 Cee ee eee Be ae oe Oe Oe ee OG oy Bk ee ee ee 21 6 18 Mgeblevel MSCs o o cct esaret ad pada HS 4G EOS e ea 22 NET aa e a OX 25 7 Style parameters 26 8 Example 26 9 Acknowledgments 27 1 New Version 2 00 is the result of a complete rewrite of the package The main difference is that the package is now implemented in TikZ instead of PSTricks making it compatible with pdfLaTex and BEAMER In addition the syntax has been slightly extended It now supports the specification of all options as a comma separated list in square brackets while remaining backward compatible All lengths are now stored using PGF keys As a result it is possible to change sizes of shapes individually Support for colors is added We are much indebted to Adrian Farmadin Masaryk University Czech Republic for initiating and contributing to this software rehaul Version 1 17 slightly modifies the handling of the offset argument of the mess setstoptimer and settimeout commands All commands with an offset argument can now properly handle real numbers as argument Furthermore the topheaddist firstlevelheight and instheadheight lengths are now taken into account when computing the height of the instance and the gatesymbolradius length is now properly implemented The condition macro is now extended to dynamically resize a condition symbol that spans multiple instances
13. The condition and action macros introduced in the previous release no longer shrink to a size smaller than their non starred counterparts The condition and action have crossed out counterparts ncondition and naction respectively A variation to the stop command is implemented Rather than drawing a cross to denote that an instance has stopped the stop command draws an instance footer Finally the create command no longer requires the creator parameter to be specified If it is not specified no arrow is drawn from the creator to the dynamically created instance Version 1 16 solves a bug that was due to a change in syntax of the scalebox macro in the PSTricks package The action and condition macros are extended with a starred option The starred version of the macros automatically adjusts the size of the rectangle and hexagon based on the size of the contents Version 1 13 has a reimplementation of message commands in MSC diagrams The affected commands are create found lost mess and order The new implemen tation provides more control over the placement of message labels The command selfmesslabelpos has been removed The bounding box bug has been partly solved Now a white fbox is drawn around every msc mscdoc hmsc diagram This makes it possible for dvips E to compute the correct bounding box for the diagrams Due to the fbox each diagram is extended with 0 3pt on each side left top right and bottom
14. The possible values are left right and center The keys title top distance and title distance control the distances of the header from the frame The size of the HMSC frame is calculated automatically unless the optional parameters lix lly and urz ury are specified In such case the frame is determined by the coordinates of the lower left corner llx lly and the coordinates of the upper right corner urz ury msc hmsc keyword keyword no default initially hmsc The keyword will be a starting word in a header of HMSC msc north hmsc margin distance no default initially 0 5cm The distance determines the north margin of hmsc environment msc south hmsc margin distance no default initially 0 5cm The distance determines the south margin of hmsc environment msc east hmsc margin distance no default initially 0 5cm The distance determines the east margin of hmsc environment msc west hmsc margin distance no default initially 0 5cm The distance determines the west margin of hmsc environment msc west hmsc margin distance no default initially 0 5cm The distance determines the west margin of hmsc environment 22 msc hmsc margin distance style no default Sets the north hmsc margin south hmsc margin west hmsc margin east hmsc margin to distance In the HMSC we can draw number of symbols Each symbol is in fact a node and options can be used to specify for example the p
15. ated later startinst options instance name text above tert inside This command create an instance The created instance must have been declared first with the dummyinst command The name of the created instance consists of two parts The part called text above is placed above the instance head and the text inside is centered within the instance head create options name creator instance name text above tert inside This command is identical to dummyinst command except it allows to specify the creator of the instance The command results in a horizontal message arrow labelled with name The arrow starts at the current level at the instance with the nickname creator and ends at the current level at the instance head of the instance with nickname instance name As with normal messages placement of the message label is controlled by the keys label position and pos 18 stop options instance name An instance is stopped with the stop command The instance is the nickname of the stopped instance The instance axis is not drawn any further below the level at which the stop command is issued Also the instance foot symbol is not drawn If the stop command is used then the instance foot symbol is drawn instead of the stop symbol msc stop width width no default initially 0 5cm The width determines the size of the stop symbol Take care not to specify any events on an instance
16. ave a double line axis The order of the instance declarations determines the order in which the instances occur in the drawing An instance is declared with the following command declinst nickname instance name above instance name within The starred version produces a fat instance The nickname is used for referring to this instance in the rest of the MSC definition The instance name above is put above the instance head symbol The instance name within is put inside the instance head symbol MSC definition The keys associated with the command msc head height height no default initially 0 55cm Specifes the minimum height of the instance head symbol msc instance width width no default initially 1 6cm Specifes the minimum width of the instance head symbol msc head top distance distance no default initially 1 3cm Specifes the distance between top of the head symbols and frame msc foot height height no default initially 0 2cm Specifes the height of the instance foot symbol msc foot distance distance no default initially 0 7cm Specifes the distance between the instance foot symbol and the bottom of the MSC frame msc environment distance distance no default initially Specifies the distance between the edge of the MSC and the first last instance axis msc instance width width no default initially 1 6cm Specifies the width of the instance head and foot symbols
17. e MSC e g the relative positioning of two messages should be as defined by the user even if the messages are not causally ordered e The user can customize the appearance of the MSCs by manipulating an appropriate set of parameters 4 Installation copyright and system requirements The MSC macro package is still under development The authors appreciate any comments and suggestions for improvements The most recent version of the package can be downloaded from http satoss uni 1lu mscpackage The MSC macro package has a LaTeX Project Public License LPPL see http wiw latex project org lppl txt As such it is free of charge and can be freely distributed Furthermore it is allowed to make modifications to the package provided that modified versions get different names The authors accept no liability with respect to the functioning of the package The MSC macro package runs with BTFX 2g It has been tested with BTFX 2 version dated 1998 06 01 using TREX version 3 14159 The following additional packages are required tikz calc and xstring These packages are in general part of the standard BTFX 2e distribution These additional packages can be obtained from the ctan database for BT EX e g via the following URL http www tex ac uk The tikz package is described shortly in 4 or in the PGFmanual 6 The generated output can be previewed with pdf ps previewing software It may be needed to update all TRX related software to a
18. e clause nextlevel is used to advance to the next level 6 Use of the MSC macro package 6 1 Options Each command supported by the MSC macro package can be provided with a list of options A list of options is surrounded by square brackets and options are separated by a comma In fact options are PGF keys and the parsing of options is done internally by the TikZ package All keys defined by the MSC macro package are prefixed by the msc keyword When a key is not fully specified i e it is specified without the msc tikz or some other prefix the package will search first for the keys in the msc namespace and if no key is found it will search the default tikz name space In the description below optional arguments are marked in green 6 2 The MSC frame The msc environment is used for making MSC definitions Thus such a definition looks as follows begin msc options msc name environment contents end msc This declares the msc environment The frame and the header of the MSC are drawn The argument msc name is the name of the MSC The header of an MSC is formed from the keyword msc followed by the msc name The size of the MSC frame is determined vertically by the number of levels occurring in the MSC see Section 6 3 and horizontally by the number of instances see Sec tion 6 4 msc title position position no default initially left Controls the position of the header of the MSC Possible values of pos
19. efault initially 2 For self message integer determines how many levels the message arrow should ad vance msc side side no default initially left Determine the position of the arrow with respect to the instance axis Valid values for side are left and right In case of a non self message the key is ignored msc label position position no default initially above Determines the position of the label In case of non self message valid values for position are above below above left above right below left and below right In case of self message valid values are left and right and the default value is taken from the value of the key side As the implementation uses corresponding tikz keys the label position part can be skipped msc pos real no default initially 0 5 Determines the relative distance of the message label to the beginning of the message Valid values for real are real numbers in the closed interval 0 1 The key works in similar way as tikz pos key msc self message width width no default initially 0 6cm Controls the width of the polyline used for drawing self message msc label distance distance no default initially 1ex Specifies the distance between the label of a message and the message arrow It has the same effect as specifying the key tikz inner sep msc arrow scale scale no default initially 1 5 The scale specifies by which factor should the message arrow be scaled
20. egions are supported coregion the instance axis is dashed which means that the order of the attached instances is immaterial suspension region a small rectangle with dashed left and right sides which denotes that the instance is suspended activation region a small filled rectangle which denotes that the instance has control The following commands are used to draw an instance region regionstart options type instance name After this command the instance axis of intstance name is drawn in the shape deter mined by type starting from the current level The type can have values coregion suspension and activation regionend instance name T After this command the instance axis for the instance name is drawn in the usual way In other words it ends current region The following keys controll the shape of on instance region msc region bar width width no default initially 0 15cm Determines the width of the coregion start and end symbol msc region width Determines the width of the activation and suspension rectangle no default initially 0 4cm In the following example several instance regions are demonstrated Note that the relative order of mess regionstart and regionend commands does not matter Also notice that the second activation region on i ends with a method reply which is produced by the command mess 17 msc regions begin msc small values regions
21. essage is denoted by an arrow starting at an open circle and ending at an instance Otherwise the command is identical to the lost command msc lost symbol radius radius no default initially 0 24cm Determines the radius of the circle for lost and found messages The following example shows a found and a lost message begin msc small values lost and found declinst i i declinst j j found m g i nextlevel mess p i j nextlevel lost side right n j end msc msc lost and found 6 11 Conditions There are two commands to draw condition boxes condition options teat instance list A condition is denoted by a hexagon It is used to express that the system has entered a certain state A condition relates to a number of instances All conditions which take part in the condition are covered by the condition symbol The other instances are drawn through the condition symbol The tezt is placed in the center of the condition The instance list expresses which instances take part in the condition It is a list of nicknames of instances separated by commas Take care not to add extra white space around the nicknames since this is considered part of the nickname in BIFX The order in which the instances are listed is immaterial The starred version of the command condition produces the same result as the command condition except that the width of the condition symbol is
22. eys to control the size and shape of the gate symbol msc gate symbol radius radius no default initially 0 05cm The radius defines the radius of the gate symbol The next example shows a number of gates 21 msc gates 6 18 High level MSCs begin msc small values gates declinst i i declinst j j declinst k k referencestart r ref i j nextlevel gate g rright ness b rright envright gate r Le h envright nextlevel 2 ness c rright k gate 1 b h rright nextlevel 2 referenceend r end msc A High level MSC HMSC is a drawing which defines the relation between a number of MSCs It is composed of a start symbol an upside down triangle a number of end symbols represented by triangles a number of MSC references these are rectangles with rounded corners a number of conditions hexagons and possibly several connection points circles These symbols are connected by arrows The following commands can be used to draw HMSCs beginfhmsc options hmsc name Ilz Ily urx ury environment contents end hmsc In order to draw HMSCs a new environment is defined which is called hmsc The command to begin this environment has several arguments The header of an HMSC is formed from the value of the key hmsc keyword initially hmsc followed by the hmsc name The positioning of the header depends on the key title position
23. for HMSC s high level MSCs and MSCdocs In this manual we explain the design and the use of the MSC macro package For a complete overview of all features we refer to the reference manual 1 which is included in the distribution under the name refman ps Another way to learn how to use the MSC macro package is to have a look at the BTFX source code of the manual and the source code of the reference manual They are included in the distribution under the names manual tex and refman tex respectively The MSC constructs are simply introduced as syntactic constructs This paper is not meant to describe their use or meaning We list the backgrounds of the package and some design decisions in Section 3 Section 4 contains notes on installing the package Section 5 contains an example of using the package It allows the impatient reader to quickly start using the package The details of using the package are explained in Section 6 In Section 7 the parameters are explained which determine detailed layout of the various symbols A large but meaningless example is given in Section 8 3 Background and motivation Several commercial and non commercial tools are available which support drawing or generating Message Sequence Charts However these tools are in general not freely available and often not flexible enough to satisfy all user s wishes with respect to the layout and graphical appearance of an MSC Therefore people often use general drawing t
24. ght edge of the inline expression symbol and the rightmost included instance axis The following example shows how to draw inline expressions msc inline expressions begin msc small values inline expressions declinst i it declinst j j declinst k k inlinestart exp1 par i k nextlevel ness a k j nextlevel inlinestart left inline overlap 0 6cm fexp2 alt i j nextlevel 2 ness b j i nextlevel inlineseparator exp2 nextlevel ness c j i nextlevel inlineend exp2 nextlevel inlineseparator fexp1 nextlevel ness d j k nextlevel inlineend exp1 nextlevel inlinestart exp3 opt i j nextlevel ness e envright exp3right ness e exp3right j nextlevel ness f j i nextlevel inlineend exp3 end msc 6 17 Gates A gate determines a connection point for messages The following command can be used to draw gates gate options gate name instance name The unstarred version produces a normal invisible gate The starred version produces a visible gate a small dot The gate is drawn at the current level at the instance instance name which can also be the left and right edge of e g an MSC reference The gate name is attached to the gate The positioning of the gate name relative to the gate is determined by the keys side left or right and position above mid or below There are several k
25. irst event is at the current level The second event is offset levels lower than the first event Not that instead giving optional argument offset we can specify the key offset The name is attached to the measure symbol The measure symbol can be placed ath the left or right of instance1 This is determined by the value of the key side In the starred version of the command arrow heads are at the outside of the measured interval In case the two events are far apart the measure may be split in two parts We use two commands to draw this parts measurestart options name instance gate Draws the first part of the measure The points where these two parts should be connected are drawn by a small cicle to which the text gate in attached In the starred version of the command arrow heads are at the outside of the measured interval measureend options name instance gate Draws the first part of the measure in similar way as measurestart command Several keys can be used to control the detailed layout of the time measurement symbols The label distance key specify the distance between the label of a measurement and the measurement symbol msc measure distance distance no default initially 0 6cm This key specifies at which distance the measurement symbols are drawn from the instance line msc measure symbol width width no default initially 0 2cm Specifies the width of the measurement t
26. is placed left aligned below the MSCdoc header The size of the MSCdoc frame is determined by coordinates of the lower left corner 11x 1ly and the coordinates of the upper right corner urx ury The MSCdoe grid is not drawn but used to control the positioning of the MSC references The center of such a reference is drawn on the grid point with coordinates x y The separator command draws a dashed horizontal line The MSC references above the separator are the exported while the ones below the separator are local There are several parameters to control the size and shape of the symbols see Section 7 mscdocreferenceheight the height of the reference symbol mscdocreferencewidth 25 the width of the reference symbol topnamedist sets the distance between the top of the MSCdoc frame and the MSCdoc header An example of an MSCdoc is in the following diagram Notice that the size of references in an MSCdoc had to be changed for the last reference mscdoc My declarations Le J Le This is a two line reference 7 Style parameters 8 Example begin mscdoc My declarations 0 0 6 8 reference a 1 6 reference b 3 6 reference c 1 4 reference d 3 4 separator 3 mscset reference width 4 5cm mscset reference height 2 baselineskip reference y parbox 4cm raggedright This is a two line reference 3 1 5 end mscdoc Figure 4 on page 28 shows the MSC defined in the following LTX f
27. ition are left right and center msc msc keyword keyword no default initially msc Specifies the keyword in the header msc title distance distance no default initially 0 2cm Specifies the distance between left right side of the frame and the MSC header msc title top distance distance no default initially 0 2cm Specifies the distance between top of the frame and the top of the MSC header msc left environment distance distance no default initially 2cm Specifies the distance between the left most instance and the left side of the frame msc right environment distance distance no default initially 2cm Specifies the distance between the right most instance and the right side of the frame msc environment distance no value Sets the keys right environment distance and left environment distance to the provided value msc instance distance distance no default initially 0 6cm Sets the distance between the vertical instance lines msc draw frame colour default initially Sets the colour of the frame If you do not want to draw a frame set colour to none When colour is empty then the last colour is used usually black msc draw grid grid type default grid initially none Specifies if we want to draw the help grid in msc Possible values for grid type are grid color grid and none 6 3 Levels An MSC is vertically divided in levels All events in an MSC are attached
28. lacement relative to the other nodes The following commands are used to draw the symbols hmscstartsymbol options nicknamee x y Draws an equilateral triangle pointed down representing the start symbol The nickname can be used later as a reference to the drawn symbol Optional 7 and y specify the coordinates at which the symbol should be drawn msc start symbol style no value A style that is applied to draw a triangle node in the hmscstartsymbol command msc hmsc symbol width width no default initially 0 7cm Sets the width of the triangle of the start and end symbol in hmsc to the width hmscendsymbol options nickname x y The command in identical to hmscstartsymbol command but draws an equilateral triangle pointed up representing the start symbol msc end symbol style no value A style that is applied to draw a triangle node in the hmscendsymbol command hmscreference options nickname text x y Draws a text inside a frame with rounded corners The nickname can be used later to connect it to other hmsc elements msc reference style no value A style that is applied to draw a reference node in the hmscreference command msc reference height height no default initially 0 7cm Sets the minimal height of the reference to height msc reference width width no default initially 1 4cm Sets the minimal width of the reference to width hmsccondion
29. llowing key affects the drawing of the comment msc msccomment distance distance no default initially 1 1cm Specifies the distance at which the comment will be placed from the instance in stance 10 begin msc small values Label reference points declinst mo I0 10 Il I2 declinst m1HI1 declinst m2 I2 nextlevel msc Label reference points mess label position above above m0 m1 nextlevel mess label position below below m1 m2 nextlevel 2 mess anchor south pos 0 1 south m1 m0 nextlevel mess anchor north north m2 m1 nextlevel 2 mess label position left left m0 m0 2 mess side right pos 0 9 right m2 m2 2 nextlevel 4 mess label position right right m0 m0 2 mess left side right left m2 m2 2 nextlevel 6 mess anchor east east m0 m0 2 mess anchor west side right west m2 m2 2 nextlevel 4 mess right right m0 m0 2 mess side right left left m2 m2 2 below nextlevel 2 mess below left below left m0 m1i 2 mess above right above right m1 m2 2 nextlevel 6 mess anchor south west SW m1 m0 2 mess anchor north east pos 0 NE m2 m1 2 nextlevel 2 end msc Figure 3 Different placing the message labels 11 The following diagram shows how to use comments In this diagram we modify the distance between the frame and the insta
30. more recent version in order to smoothly work with the MSC macro package The MSC macro package can be installed easily Just put the file msc sty in a directory which is searched by TX for style files The set of directories actually searched depends 4 on the TRX installation but often the current directory is included UNIX users may have to set the environment variable TEXINPUTS to an appropriate value For more details on this topic consult documentation of your T X installation 5 Quick start The MSC macro package is easy to use Below is an example of the use of the package and Figure 1 shows the generated MSC The MSC macro package is activated by the clause begin msc Example msc Example declinst usr User User Machine 1 Machine 2 declinst m1 Machine 1 control declinst m2 Machine 2 drill mess label position below startm1 startm2 startm1 usr m1 nextlevel mess startm2 m1 m2 nextlevel ness log mi envleft nextlevel nextlevel ness output m2 usr 2 mess free m1 usr nextlevel end msc Figure 1 The generated MSC usepackage msc This package contains among others a definition of the environment msc This environment is used to draw MSCs The MSC definition is surrounded by the clauses begin msc Example and end msc The name of the MSC Example is displayed in the upper left corner of the MSC The next four lines define the instances declinst m1 Machine 1 con
31. nces in order to fit the comments inside the frame msc comments begin msc small values left environment distance 2 6cm right environment distance 1 9cm comments declinst i i declinst j j messfa i j 2 msccomment msccomment distance 1 2cm start i nextlevel 2 msccomment side right end j nextlevel end msc 6 7 Actions An instance can perform an action which is denoted by a rectangle There are two commands to draw actions action options name instance The action is attached at the current level to the instance The name is centered inside the action symbol and is processed in LR mode The height and width of the action symbol are adjusted so that the name fits inside a rectangle The starred version of the command action produces the same result as action except that the width of the action is not adjusted The following keys determine the detailed drawing of the action symbol msc action width width no default initially 1 25cm Specifies the width of the action symbol msc action height hegiht no default initially 0 6cm Specifies the height of the action symbol naction options name instance The naction command produces an action box with a diagonal cross in it It is otherwise identical to the action command The following example shows that after an action often a multiple level increment is needed to obtain nice picture
32. not adjusted to fit the contents of the hexagon ncondition options teat instance list The ncondition command produces a condition with a diagonal cross in it It is otherwise identical to the condition command 15 There are several keys that controls the shape of the condition symbol msc condition height hegiht no default initially 0 6cm Determines the height of the condition symbol msc condition overlap distance no default initially 0 5cm The distance determines the width of the part of the condition symbol which extends over the rightmost leftmost contained instance axis The following example contains some conditions begin msc small values conditions declinst i i declinst j j declinst k k condition some condition i k nextlevel 3 mess m i j action fa k nextlevel condition C i ncondition D j nextlevel 2 condition A B C i j k nextlevel 2 end msc msc conditions 6 12 Generalized ordering A generalized order is treated much like a regular message see Section 6 5 There are three differences a generalized order is drawn with a dotted line it has no label and the arrow head is in the middle of the line A generalized order is defined with the following command order options sender receiver level offset The sender and receiver are the nicknames of the instances which are connected
33. ools such as xfig to draw MSCs However flexible this approach is it takes quite some effort to produce nice MSC drawings in a tool which is not dedicated to MSCs Furthermore when drawing a number of MSCs it requires some preciseness in order to obtain a consistent set of MSCs For these reasons we have started the design of a set of TX macros which support the drawing of MSCs In this way an MSC can be represented in BTFX in a textual format and compiled into e g PostScript We aimed at satisfying the following requirements and design decisions e The package should follow the ITU standard with respect to shape and placement of the symbols The current version supports the MSC2000 standard e Static and dynamic semantics are not considered The user is allowed to violate all semantical restrictions and draw inconsistent MSCs The package only supports ele mentary syntactical requirements e The package should offer functionality at the right level of abstraction Rather than supplying coordinates of pixels the user should be able to express the placement of symbols in terms of levels Nevertheless the textual representation of MSCs as defined by the ITU standard has a level of abstraction which is too high for our purposes It lacks information about the actual positioning of the MSC symbols while we think that in our package this should be under user control e There should be only minimal automatic restructuring and layout of th
34. ragment begin msc Example declinst usr The user User declinst m1 Control M1 dummyinst m2 declinst m3 Another Machine M3 create start m1 m2 Processing M2 mess msg O envleft usr mess msg 1 envright m2 1 nextlevel mess msg 2 usr m1 order m1 m2 4 action a m3 nextlevel found msg x usr nextlevel mess msg 3 usr m2 1 coregionstart m1 settimeout S m3 2 26 nextlevel mess msg 4 m1 usr coregionstart m2 settimer r T m3 nextlevel mess r msg 5 m2 m2 3 mess msg 6 usr usr 2 nextlevel mess msg 7 m2 usr timeout r T m3 nextlevel coregionend m2 nextlevel coregionend m1 stoptimer r T m3 nextlevel lost r msg y Mach 1 usr mess msg 8 m1i envright nextlevel condition condition 1 usr m2 setstoptimer r U m3 nextlevel 2 stop usr end msc 9 Acknowledgments Thanks are due to the following people for providing us with useful input Cas Cremers Hugo Jonker Peter Peters Sa a Radomirovi Michel Reniers and Pim Vullers References 1 V Bos T van Deursen and S Mauw A DTX macro package for Message Sequence Charts Reference Manual Describing MSC macro package version 2 0 December 2010 Included in MSC macro package distribution 2 ITU T ITU T Recommendation Z 120 Message Sequence Chart MSC Geneva 2011 3 L Lamport DTX Document Preparation S
35. ression symbol The following commands are used to draw inline expressions inlinestart options nickname operator left instance right instance T Starts the inline expression at the current level The inline expression spans over the instances from left instance to right instance The operand is placed in the upper left corner of the rectangle The left and right edge of the inline expression symbol are named nickname left and nickname right where nickname is the nickname of the inline expression as defined in the inlinestart command These names can be used at every place where the nickname of an instance is required e g as the sender or receiver of a message inlineseparator options nickname Draws a dashed line at the current level for the inline expression with nickname nickname inlineend options nickname Ends the inline expresion with the nickname nickname at the current level The command inlineend does the same as the command inlineend except that the bottom line of the rectangle is This is used to indicate that the operand is optional dashed 20 msc left inline overlap distance no default initially 1cm Determines the distance which is a distance between the left edge of the inline expres sion symbol and the leftmost included instance axis msc right inline overlap distance no default initially 1cm Determines the distance which is a distance between the ri
36. riangle symbol The following example illustrates marks and measurements in an MSC begin msc small values Time measurements declinst i i declinst j j declinst k k mess mi i j 1 mscmark t 0 0 i measure 0 6 i j 4 nextlevel mscmark position above side right t 0 3 j nextlevel 3 mess m2 j k measurestart side right 0 2 k g nextlevel 6 mess m3 k i mscmark position below side left t 1 0 i measureend side right 0 2 k g nextlevel end msc msc Time measurements 14 6 10 Lost and found messages lost options name gate instance A lost message is denoted by an arrow starting at an instance and ending at a filled circle The argument instance determines the instance to which the arrow is attached The name of the message is put above the message arrow The gate is a text associated to the circle The keys side label position pos label distance and self message width function in similar way as in the mess command Section 6 5 That is side controls the placement of the lost or found message with respect to the instance axis The label position and pos controls the placement of the name with respect to the message arrow The key self message width determines the length of the arrow and labeldistance specifies the distance between the name and the arrow found options name gate H instance A found m
37. s begin msc small values instance distance 1 6cm action declinst i i declinst j j mess a j i nextlevel naction doit i nextlevel 2 action doitnow i nextlevel 2 mess b il j end msc msc action 12 6 8 Timers There are five commands to draw timer events settimer options name instance Setting of a timer is drawn as a line connecting the instance to the hour glass symbol The name is put near this symbol The key side is determines on which side of the instance axis the timer is drawn The key self message width determines the lenght of the arm between the symbol and the instance axis The key label distance determines the distance between the name and the timer symbol The key arrow scale determines the scaling of the arrow hour glass symbol to the instance timeout options name instance A time out is represented by an arrow from an hour glass symbol to the instance stoptimer options name instance Stopping a timer is drawn as a line connecting the instance with the timer stop symbol denoted by a cross settimeout options name instance offset The command settimeout is a combination of the setting of a timer and a time out The offset denotes the number of levels between the two events setstoptimer options name instance C offset Likewise setstoptimer is a combination of the
38. stance is required e g as the sender or receiver of a message referenceend options nickname T This command end the reference nickname that has been started with the referencestart command 19 The following keys affect the drawing of reference symbol msc left reference overlap distance no default initially 1cm Determines the distance between the left edge of the reference symbol and the leftmost covered instance axis msc right reference overlap distance no default initially 1cm Determines the distance between the right edge of the reference symbol and the right most covered instance axis The following example shows the usage of references msc references a reference another reference 6 16 Inline expressions begin msc small values references declinst i it declinst j j declinst k k ness a j k nextlevel referencestart r a reference i j nextlevel ness b rright k nextlevel 2 referenceend r nextlevel 2 referencestart p another reference i k nextlevel ness c envright pright nextlevel 4 referenceend p end msc An inline expression is a part of an MSC on which an operation is defined A rectangle surrounds the part of the MSC containing the operands The operands are separated by horizontal dashed lines The operator is placed in the upper left corner of the inline exp
39. to a certain level or stretch out over several levels Any number of events can be drawn at a certain level An event will always be drawn or started at the current level unless a level offset is specified see e g the mess command in Section 6 5 The level offset is a positive integer number which denotes at which level relative to the current level an event should be drawn Drawing starts at level 0 The following command is used to advance to the next level nextlevel level offset The lever offset is a positive integer value which denotes the number of levels to advance By default the value of lever offset is 1 which means drawing continues at the next level The following keys influence the nextlevel command msc first level height distance no default initially 0 6cm Specifies the distance between the instance start symbol and the first level msc level height distance no default initially 0 5cm Specifies the distance between two consecutive levels msc last level height distance no default initially 0 4cm Specifies the distance between the last level and the instance end symbol Figure on page shows all lengths of the MSC macro package 6 4 Instances All instances have to be declared before they can be used An instance consists of an instance head symbol with an associated name an instance axis and an instance end symbol Normal instances have a single line axis Fat instances h
40. trol defines an instance with nickname m1 and a description consisting of two parts namely Machine 1 and control The nickname is used in all subsequent references to this instance The first part of the description is drawn above the rectangular instance head symbol and the second part of the description is drawn inside the instance head symbol The following lines contain the definitions of the messages Every message has a source and a destination instance The clause mess label position below startm1 usr m1 defines a message with name startm1 which goes from instance usr to instance m1 Between square brackets we can put optional list of options Each option is comma separated from another option In this example we specify the placement of the label to be below the message arrow In order to control the vertical placement of the messages the MSC is divided into levels At every level any number of messages may start The vertical position of the end point of a message is determined by the optional fourth argument of the message definition as in the clause mess output m2 user 2 This argument is the vertical offset in number of levels between the start point of the message i e the current level and its end point If the value is 0 the message is drawn horizontally A negative offset means that the arrow has an upward slope Equivalently we could specify this value using option mess level shift 2 output m2 user Th
41. vel 3 0 3 12 hmscstartsymbol s 0 10 hmscreference a A 0 9 hmscconnection c 0 7 5 setlength hmscreferencewidth 2cm setlength hmscreferenceheight 3 baselineskip hmscreference b parbox 1 9cm centering this is a big hmsc reference 0 6 hmsccondition t Again 1 4 5 hmsccondition ok 0k 0 3 5 hmsccondition q textit Break 2 3 5 hmscendsymbol e1 2 2 hmscreference do Do it 0 2 reference hmscendsymbol e2 0 1 arrow s a arrow a c arrow c b arrow c 2 7 5 q arrow b q arrow q t e1 arrow b ok arrow ok do arrow do e2 arrow b t arrow t 1 3 5 2 5 3 5 2 5 7 5 c end hmsc this is a big hmsc 6 19 MSC documents An MSCdoc is a drawing which contains various declarations of objects used in the MSC description For drawing MSCdocs he following commands are provided begin mscdoc headerpos mscdocname text 11x 1ly urx ury end mscdoc reference text x y separator y As for MSC and HMSC a new environment is defined which is named mscdoc The command to begin an MSCdoc has several arguments The argument headerpos is optional It controls positioning of the header of the MSCdoc This argument can have values 1 for a left aligned header c for a centered header and r for a right aligned header The header of an MSCdoc is formed from the keyword mscdocument followed by the mscdocname The text
42. ystem User s Guide and Reference Manual Adsison Wesley 2nd edition 1994 Updated for PTFX 2 21 OU msc Example The user Control Another Machine Figure 4 A menagerie of MSC symbols Andrew Mertz and William Slough Graphics with tikz The PracTEX Journal 1 2007 E Rudolph P Graubmann and J Grabowski Tutorial on message sequence charts MSC 96 In FORTE 1996 T Tantau Tikz and pgf Manual for version 2 10 2010 28
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